Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle body front structure.
Description of the Related Art
In a vehicle such as a passenger car, a front bumper beam extending in the vehicle width direction is located at the front end of a vehicle body. Left and right bumper beam extensions extending to the rear side are provided at two ends of the front bumper beam in the longitudinal direction. Left and right mounting brackets are provided at the rear ends of the left and right bumper beam extensions. The left and right mounting brackets are detachably connected to the front ends of the left and right front side frames. The mounting structures of the left and right mounting brackets on the left and right bumper beam extensions are known from, for example, Japanese Patent No. 5180950.
In a vehicle body front structure known from Japanese Patent No. 5180950, the rear ends of left and right bumper beam extensions are abutted against the plate surfaces of plate-like left and right flanges (corresponding to mounting brackets), and welded by fillet welding.
In general, a front bumper beam adopted for a relatively large passenger car such as an SUV or minivan is large and thus heavy. While a vehicle travels, the vibration of wheels on a traveling road surface is transferred from a vehicle body to the front bumper beam via left and right bumper beam extensions. As the weight of the front bumper beam is larger, the vibration of the front bumper beam tends to be amplified. To improve the NV performance (noise and vibration performance) of the overall vehicle, it is required to suppress the vibration of the front bumper beam.
An arrangement obtained by welding the rear ends of the left and right bumper beam extensions to the plate-like left and right flanges (corresponding to the mounting brackets) by fillet welding, like the vehicle body front structure known from Japanese Patent No. 5180950, has a limit to suppression of the vibration of the front bumper beam. In addition, since a stress concentrates on each of the joint portions between the left and right bumper beam extensions and the left and right mounting brackets, there is room for improvement from the viewpoint of increasing the durability of the overall vehicle body.
The present invention provides a technique capable of increasing the joining strengths of the joint portions between the left and right bumper beam extensions and the left and right mounting brackets while suppressing the vibration of the front bumper beam in the vertical direction.